Iemma calls for summit on mental health mess

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The Premier, Morris Iemma, has called for a national summit on
mental health in the wake of a damning report detailing thousands
of system and service failures on a daily basis.

Undergraduate training of mental health nurses and providing
incentives for general practitioners to assist people with mental
illnesses needed to be examined in the summit, Mr Iemma said.
Mental health services could also be improved by easing immigration
rules for psychiatrists and providing more respite care for support
carers and their families, he said.

A co-ordinated approach was necessary, Mr Iemma said, because
both state and federal governments have powers that affect mental
health outcomes.

"The issue is not about who has got control," he told the NSW
Parliament. "The issue is about better quality of services for
those with a mental illness and better support for their
carers."

While the NSW Government had increased its funding for mental
health services by 9.1 per cent to $854 million, for too long
mental health had been a political football, he said.

"No one can be proud about the situation faced by those
requiring treatment for mental health. A lot more can be done and
there is room for significant improvement."

Released on Wednesday, the 1000-page report, entitled, Not
For Service was produced by the Mental Health Council of
Australia, the Mind and Brain Institute and the Human Rights and
Equal Opportunity Commission.

Based on national data collected from 2003 to 2005 from those
working in mental health services, it calls for a complete overhaul
in every state.

On its release, the federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott, said
the system would be more efficient if mental health was solely
handled by one level of government. He has now asked the NSW
Government to formalise an offer to stand aside and allow the
Commonwealth to run mental health services.

"I would invite the NSW minister to write to me, and anything
that he says by way of reform proposals in this area will go into
the Council of Australian Governments reform process," Mr Abbott
said.

The NSW Health Minister, John Hatzistergos, said if Mr Abbott
could guarantee the Federal Government would provide more resources
and better services, the state would not stand in the way.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, said he had appointed a team,
headed by his own department and assisted by the Treasury and the
Department of Health and Ageing, to look at the report.

"I would like the report to be subject to some critical analysis
before I wholeheartedly endorse it, and when that occurs it will
certainly be a matter that I will talk to the premiers about," Mr
Howard said.

It was not an issue that should become a point of conflict
between the Commonwealth and the states, he said. "No one level of
government can escape responsibility, nor equally should any level
of government seek to blame the other either."

But the chairman of the Mental Health Council, Keith Wilson,
said lives were put at risk while politics was being argued
over.

"People around the country are crying out for mental health
services and they don't care who provides them - they just need
help now," he said.